Audio Series:Theater Conversations
The Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival, in association with The Dramatists Guild, presents conversations from their two-week playwriting intensive at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
Theater, Jobs in the Arts, Backstage

Audio Series:Page to Stage
Taking a musical from words on a page to songs on a stage: in this series, follow along as talented playwrights, designers and directors at The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts transform classic works of literature into original theatrical productions.
Literature, Theater, Jobs in the Arts, Music

Audio Series:Artfully Speaking
An audio series pulled from lectures, workshops and other events for educators presented by and through the Education Department of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.
Education, Jobs in the Arts

Audio:The Phantom Tollbooth: Page to Stage
Follow the process of bringing Norton Juster’s beloved book from the golden age of children’s literature to the stage. Commissioned by The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, this world-premiere musical tells the story of Milo, who comes to realize that life is more exciting than his wildest dreams. This inventive musical features a melodious score by Arnold Black and witty lyrics full of wordplay by Pulitzer Prize and three-time Tony winner Sheldon Harnick (Fiddler on the Roof, She Loves Me).
Literature, Theater, Jobs in the Arts, Music, Backstage, Musicals

Audio:Knuffle Bunny: Page to Stage
Follow the process of bringing Mo Willems’s beloved children's book to the stage. Commissioned by The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, this world-premiere musical tells the story of Trixie, her parents, and Trixie's favorite stuffed animal, Knuffle Bunny. This fun musical features an up-beat score by Michael Silversher with lyrics by Mo Willems.
Theater, Jobs in the Arts, Music, Puppets, Literature, Musicals, Backstage

Audio:Blues Journey: Page to Stage
Join playwright Jerome Hairson and director Scot Reese as they bring the story of Blues Journey from page to stage, developing the original book of blues lyrics into a fully realized play, rich with musical performances. Blues Journey follows the life of a blues performer as he learns to play, finds fame, and witnesses the blues evolve into rock-and-roll in this world premiere Kennedy Center original production based on the children's book by Walter Dean Myers.
Blues, Music, Theater, Jobs in the Arts, Popular Culture, Rock & Roll, Musicals, Backstage

Arts Days:December 18, 1946: Leader Behind the Lens
Steven Spielberg may well be the best-known film director working today. His movies read like a list of the greatest American films: Jaws, Schindler’s List, and Saving Private Ryan among them. Not only that, but he’s got his finger on the pulse of what makes a movie sell tickets. Lots of tickets: all told, Spielberg movies have grossed more than $8 billion dollars.

Crowd pleasers like E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial and Jurassic Park have also elevated Spielberg in the director’s stratosphere, as well as less mainstream but more demanding works like Munich. In recent years, Spielberg has also often taken on the role of movie producer, creating distribution deals and hiring directors. Actor Harrison Ford sums up this 2006 Kennedy Center Honoree’s vision by stating, "Steven's passion and enthusiasm for ideas and for human understanding is very much what fuels his work."
Movies & Movie Stars, Innovators & Pioneers, Jobs in the Arts

Arts Days:December 13, 1950: Rebel Without a Coke
An undiscovered actor named James Dean wound up playing a fun-loving teenager in an early Pepsi commercial. He’s the fellow who whacks the player piano, prompting it to magically play a dance tune. As luck would have it, the handsome Dean caught the eye of folks casting a show called Hill Number One, landing him the part of John the Baptist.

More Hollywood roles followed, then a couple of parts on Broadway. All of these early assignments set the stage for feature roles in East of Eden and Rebel Without a Cause, films with which Dean is most closely identified. Seen in his short life as both a heartthrob and an actor who showed great promise, James Dean also came to embody the restless, but idealistic American teenager.
Movies & Movie Stars, Television, Popular Culture, Young Artists, Jobs in the Arts

Arts Days:March 16, 1912: Electrifying Art
It can be easy to overlook the role that lighting plays during a ballet or theatrical production, but you’d be surprised at how much a performance’s lighting design contributes to our enjoyment of it. From how well we are able to see the action to the emotions we feel as we watch, Jean Rosenthal helped make the position of lighting designer more important than it had been.

In her work lighting dance performances for Martha Graham and plays for Orson Welles, she not only used lights to illuminate the action for the audience, but to set the mood, advance the plot, or underscore the importance of certain characters. Nowadays, lighting designers work closely with the director and actors to figure out how to use light effectively before, during, and after a show. And, if you’ve seen a dancer or singer standing in a diagonal shaft of light during a big solo, you’re seeing a bit of Rosenthal’s influence at work.
Backstage, Dance, Innovators & Pioneers, Jobs in the Arts, Movies & Movie Stars, Theater

Arts Days:May 08, 1914: Lights, Camera, Action!
Back in 1912, an entrepreneur named Adolph Zukor thought he could bring more movies to the middle class by contracting a group of actors to make a fixed number of movies every year. So he started the Famous Players Film Company. Famous Players partnered with a startup called Paramount Pictures Corporation to distribute its films to theaters; a few years later, it officially merged with Paramount.

Under Zukor’s leadership, Paramount owned all the components of the movie-making apparatus. It employed superstars of the day, like Mary Pickford and Rudolph Valentino, and acquired film production studios. Paramount even bought hundreds of movie houses around the country where the finished movies would be shown.

The company has been through many mergers since those early days, and has once or twice come close to closing up shop, such as during the Great Depression. Today, however, the company is still growing strong.
America, Movies & Movie Stars, Jobs in the Arts, Art Venues

Arts Days:July 12, 1948: The Sounds of Star Wars
Close your eyes and imagine the many unique sounds in the Star Wars films: Darth Vader's breathing, X-Wing and TIE fighters, the Millennium Falcon, blasters and lightsabers, the voices of R2-D2 and Chewbacca. Sound designer Ben Burtt created all of those sounds.

But he didn't just create sounds for the Star Wars universe. He is responsible for the sounds of the Indiana Jones film series, The Dark Crystal (1982), E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982), WALL-E (2008) and Star Trek (2009). Burtt has earned four Academy Awards for his work.

Ben Burtt created the title "Sound Designer" and during his time at Lucasfilm and Pixar he set the standard for contributing a unique and innovative creative voice in his field, creating new sounds (like a scuba regulator for Vader's breath, or tapping a wrench on a radio tower support wire for the sound of a blaster shot) and repurposing classics (he championed use of the "Wilhelm Scream" and "Robin Hood arrow", both of which are used frequently by other sound designers).

According to Burtt, "Your success as an artist, to say something new, ultimately depends on the breadth of your education. My recommendation would be to major in an area other than film, develop a point of view, and then apply that knowledge to film. Because if film is all you know, you cannot help but make derivative work. I found that what I had learned about sound, history, biology, English, physics all goes into the mix."
Movies & Movie Stars, Innovators & Pioneers, Science Fiction & Fantasy, Jobs in the Arts

Video Series:Hobey Ford: Animalia
Together with his team of adorable "Foamies," Hobey makes animals of all sorts emerge in movement and music to form a full-on puppet ballet. Watch as the habits and habitats of the world's mightiest beasts and tiniest bugs come into furry focus right before your eyes.
Animals, Jobs in the Arts, Nature, Puppets, Science

ARTSEDGE, part of the Rubenstein Arts Access Program, is generously funded by David Rubenstein.

Additional support is provided by the U.S. Department of Education.

Kennedy Center education and related artistic programming is made possible through the generosity of the National Committee for the Performing Arts and the President’s Advisory Committee on the Arts.

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